Commons:Help desk/Archive/2009/04

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I'm lost == Je suis paumé

I have attempted to include categories in image http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Tang_Jingsong.jpg. It gives a funny result. An any 5-year old kid knows how to do it, but I'm six.

J'ai essayé d'ajouter des catégories à l'image http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Tang_Jingsong.jpg. Le résultat est bizarre. N'importe quel gosse de cinq saurait le faire, mais j'en ai six. --André de StCoeur (talk) 15:14, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Les catégories en Commons ne sont pas les mêmes comme par éxample dans la Wikipédia francophone. Voir ici pour catégorisation. -- Хрюша ?? 17:11, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
J'ai trouvé un gosse de 4 ans qui m'a dit que sous l'image, il y a une boîte :
Ce fichier provient de Wikimedia Commons?. Les informations le concernant sont affichées ci-dessous (procédure).
Cliquer sur "informations le concernant" (qui fait passer à Commons), puis sur "modifier". Y'avait qu'à l'savoir. --André de StCoeur (talk) 11:16, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Commons:Featured picture candidates/Begum Liaquat Ali Meets President of MIT.jpg

I'm having problem with this nomination.Please list it on behalf.Yousaf465 (talk)

No chance: Low quality, wrong date, not a good sourcing (author?), only one person of 4 is named, no categorization... Far away from quality. --Martin H. (talk) 06:21, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
What about the valued picture.?What are the issues with quality.Yousaf465 (talk)

It already have cat.Yousaf465 (talk)

I added a proper description and finished your nomination at FP, but in my opinion this is definitely not a quality pic. The uploader cropped it in a horrible way. And seeing how many other pictures of the same event are available at the source I don't think this image has a change at valued pics either. -- Cecil (talk) 08:25, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks it's because of it's importance to Pakistani History.Yousaf465 (talk)
As I mentioned there are several pictures at that source which also show those two. Why would a badly cropped image showing them with the president of MIT be so special for the history of Pakistan? What did James Rhyne Killian do for that country that makes this image special? -- Cecil (talk) 17:08, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikimedia to Wikipedia

How do I upload a picture from Wikimedia to Wikipedia on my page?

No need to reupload. Images in wikimedia commons are available in all other wikipedia projects. -- Meisam (talk) 17:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Image deletion

Could you please delete Explorer-firefox-Wikipedia Layout2.jpg this image? (old and new version) Thanks. --Waglione (talk) 18:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Question on Tutu/Dalei Lama image

Hi there I absolutely love the photo of HH the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu and would like to know how to send it to my own email: kaarenoby@hotmail.com and how to send it to FACEBOOK and WINDOWS LIVE......could you please give me instructions to help me complete this task??????? Kaaren Soby — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.209.220.40 (talk • contribs) 23:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I maybe dont understand the question, but you can simply download it with right-click and save target. Please follow the given license when reusing the image elsewhere.

License

Is it possible to obtain a license from a website author or company without e-mail? --WhiteHandofSaruman (talk) 00:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Normally letters of permission are submitted by the copyright holder via e-mail. I believe it's possible if you have a written or printed statement of permission to scan it and e-mail that to OTRS on their behalf. Is that what you mean? Dcoetzee (talk) 00:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

How do you download an SVG file?

I'm new here, so maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I want to use the blank SVG map of the world. I'm assuming I have to download it. I have already downloaded Inkscape, so I have the software to edit it. I just can't seem to find a button or any way of downloading the SVG file. I can't copy and paste it either. I've looked around, and this doesn't seem to be in any of the FAQs or anywhere else on the Internet. Help?

To download the file, right-click on the image name on the image description page and choose "Save target as...". --rimshottalk 06:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Need to change my username

hello

please help. can someone tell me how to change my username here in commons? I tried to type changing username in the search box but nothing came up only a list of pictures did.--Gionataconti (talk) 09:52, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

See Commons:Changing username. --Leyo 10:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Error in file name

I accidentally loaded a file with a comma rather than a period in the file name. I would like help in correcting this, and I would like advice on what to do should this ever happen again. --Davidt8 (talk) 14:54, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Davidt8, the best thing to do after a mistake like this, unsuccessful upload and creating a file page without media file, is marking it with {{Speedy}} and it will be deleted after a short time. If your upload was succesfull but the filename is bad you shoud reupload the image and place {{badname|correctedname.jpg}} on the badnamed file. --Martin H. (talk) 15:29, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice. I uploaded the correct file name, and it seems you fixed the bad one. Now I know to use the speedy template instead, rather than posting here. --Davidt8 (talk) 15:48, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Duplicate?

  1. File:Obama and Sarkozy in Strasbourg April 2009.jpg
  2. File:President Barack Obama and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.jpg

These files are identical except for that #2 has been photoshopped. Should #1 be marked with Template:Duplicate? --PeeKoo 11:24, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I have tagged it with a Derivative template. Snowmanradio (talk) 13:03, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

About a request to "Please report references"

File:Amazona amazonica 2c.jpg has requests in different languages to report references in the file description. What is this for? Can these be deleted from the file description? Snowmanradio (talk) 12:27, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Information to the author about usage of his work outside Wikimedia can not be required, but it is ok for contributors to request notification. Of course you can move the 3 lines from description= to author= but please do not remove them. See Commons:User_templates#Acceptable, its not a user template of course, but it is similar. --Martin H. (talk) 13:36, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Thank you. Snowmanradio (talk) 13:51, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

¿cómo puedo categorizar una imagen ya subida?

hola!!

Soy nuevo en Wikipedia, y he subido varias imágenes y el sistema me pide que le asigne una categoría, pero no se como hacerlo...

gracias!! Piero71 (talk) 16:49, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

See Commons:First steps/Sorting for instructions on how to categorize your images. Use the search box to the upper left to find suitable categories. If you have not used categories on one of the Wikipedias before, they may be confusing at first. I had to read w:Help:Category several times when I was new to Wikipedia before it started making sense. I apologize for answering in English, this is the only language I write, and I thought any answer was better than no answer. If you want help with categorizing a specific image, tell us which one. --Teratornis (talk) 22:35, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Request to overwrite 2 files

Hello there, I've been a member of both fr and en wikis since 2003 and I've just created an account on commons. I was wondering if someone could replace File:Flag_of_Occitania.svg and File:Flag_of_Occitania_(with star).svg with File:New_Flag_of_Occitania.svg and File:New_Flag_of_Occitania_(with star).svg respectively.

The flags with the old style cross and black outlines have been obsolete for more than fifty years now. The contemporary flags with modern cross and no outline are the only ones in use nowadays, as demonstrated here or here.

Both files are my creation and are in the public domain of course.

Thanks a bunch. Saebhiar (talk) 03:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Have you unified your accounts with Special:MergeAccount? Your Commons account should be autoconfirmed by now, which means you should be able to upload a new version of an image. See Special:ListGroupRights and Commons:Autoconfirmed users. --Teratornis (talk) 22:26, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

NY Times

Would like to use a photo of Klaus and Dolly Perls for a Wikipedia article. Photo is Copyrighted 2008 The New York Times Company and actually taken around 1965 - they used it in his obit. Have contacted the journalist of the obit who put me in touch with their copyright dept. Hoping to get a sensible response from them but in the meantime wanted to double check here if anyone knew anything about a scenario where an older photo seems to have a new copyright. Could they have bought it, had it donated, do I just wait for their reply, etc.?Ernstblumberg (talk) 00:59, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Good question. Help:Public domain mentions copyright renewal in passing. You might have to ask an attorney for the conditions under which a copyright is renewable. The copyright clock starts ticking on the date of first publication, I think. --Teratornis (talk) 22:31, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Cigarette brands

I noticed that, there is a category named: Cigarette brands in commons which some of its content have been nominated for deletion. Is it OK to upload these images under free license? Can I upload more images like them? -- Meisam (talk) 15:13, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

These kinds of questions may be difficult for non-lawyers to answer. See Commons:Image casebook#Product packaging. --Teratornis (talk) 22:21, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

An image

I simply want to add an image to the subject 'Tent peg' why does it have to be so complicated? Rob Orr (talk) 17:58, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you refer to the Tent peg article on the English Wikipedia? Where is this image that you want to add? Did you follow these instructions, and if so, where did you get stuck? As to why Commons can be complicated, see my essay: User:Teratornis/Why is Commons so complicated?. --Teratornis (talk) 21:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Switching to Ubuntu

HELLO MY NAME IS Douglas Baker better known as captngraybeard

Iwant to change over from windows xp pro to 810, ubuntu

& then put xp in ubuntu HELP & thank you very much XOXOXO — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.102.204.15 (talk • contribs) 23:11, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

You should ask this on w:Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing. This Help desk is for questions about using Wikimedia Commons. --Teratornis (talk) 22:17, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Problem with image

I updated an image File:Flag of Indian Army.svg but having problems seeing it in my browser. It looks like the image has been deleted. Can any one find out what the problem is?Sumanch (talk) 09:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Basically, neither the first nor the second version are actually useful as an SVG image. The first version only has an embedded raster PNG image, the second version links to a raster BMP image on your hard drive, which is why the second version cannot be displayed. Please upload the raster image without embedding it into an SVG or create a real vector graphics image. Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 17:49, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Error in Commonist Upload

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Davidt8/gallery says I have an error, but I don't know what, if anything, I can do about it. If the error means that the file was not added, that is no problem for me. I will remove the error message if there is nothing further to be done. --Davidt8 (talk) 14:04, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I think you mean File:Phila_OgdenSt02.jpg? Did you try to upload the image manually or again? Maybe it was a temporary problem, timeout or whatever. --Martin H. (talk) 15:45, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Adding categories

Maybe I'm dense but I don't see how to add a category to an image I've already uploaded.

Example: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Constantin_Korovin_-_On_the_Seashore_in_the_Crimea.JPG

Guidance welcome. Thanks, Richard

Check out Commons:First steps/Sorting and Commons:Categories. Basically you add the following to the file's page (by pressing "edit" at the top of the page): [[Category:Example]]. --Yarnalgo (talk) 23:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
To figure out what categories to use, try copying some words out of the image description and pasting them into the "search" box to the upper left. For example, the File:Constantin Korovin - On the Seashore in the Crimea.JPG description includes the words "State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow" and those are excellent search keywords. The Category:State Tretyakov Gallery is among the search results. I added your image to that category to show you how. You may find other suitable categories for your image by searching on other terms, such as the artist's name, the scene depicted, the style of art, etc. --Teratornis (talk) 22:04, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I was eqully thick untill I read this and saw the example. --MikeBarnes (talk) 09:07, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

When I first started editing on MediaWiki wikis, I had to read the w:Help:Category page several times over a span of several days before it started to sink in. For people who have never seen categories on Commons or one of the Wikipedias before, the concept can be confusing at first (it certainly was for me). The technology of categorization is highly developed here, which means there is a lot to learn. See the links under COM:EIC#Cat. On the bright side, if someone has learned to use categories on one of the Wikipedias, the software feature works the same way on Commons, although the category structures are not identical. --Teratornis (talk) 17:41, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Tag for deletion

What's the appropriate tag for an image claimed to have been released by the author under a free license but there is no evidence that the permission was actually granted (I read its some email process through OTRS)? On the English Wikipedia there is this template: {{di-no permission|date=7 April 2009}}, but it doesn't work here. This is the image that says "special permission" but has no tags that confirm it.

Also are there any scripts like Twinkle to tag images for deletion here? StaticVision (talk) 06:58, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

On Commons it is {{subst:npd}}. Please consider, that a "subst:"ed license template is used here, Template:Cc-by-3.0-IndiaFM is the special permission. --Martin H. (talk) 07:31, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
After fixing the refered template and doing some maintenance on the images using it with subst: I found, that you are maybe right. The image you named used the defuncted w:en:Template:Bollywoodblog. I already asked an OTRS volunteer for help. I found three images affected by the same problem. --Martin H. (talk) 08:54, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

tif files upload

I have tried to upload two tif files and the uploaded image is only blank. Why is that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aloguin (talk • contribs) 10:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

The images are ok, but the software is not able to thumbnail .tif/.tiff. The upload of .tif files is unlocked to help our restorationists. See bugzilla:17714. --Martin H. (talk) 13:00, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Deletion by Author

I uploaded two very specialized images (drawings) here. I no longer use them, and they are essentially useless to anyone else. How can I get rid of them? Lou Sander (talk) 11:49, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

You could request a deletion, but "not used" is not a very successfull reason as long as the drawings are in COM:Scope (haven't seen them so I don't know if they are). But actually nothing gets really deleted here on Commons. It's just a 'make it invisible for users', but it still stays in the database. So it does not really save any serverspace or stuff like that and maybe there is somebody out there who still finds it useless (you'll never know). -- Cecil (talk) 12:21, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
See COM:SCOPE. If you really want to delete the images, you can request speedy deletion; see Commons:Deletion policy#Speedy deletion. However, unless one is omniscient, it is hard to be sure that nobody else could ever find a use for them. Who knows, maybe someday you yourself will become notable, and your uploads will have historical value to your future biographers. The odds may be low, but so is the cost of keeping your uploads. --Teratornis (talk) 17:21, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Bad quality

What should be done with this.--Yousaf465 (talk) 04:08, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

You may nominate it for deletion if you believe it should be deleted or you can mark it with {{Low quality}} (I recommend deletion). --Yarnalgo (talk) 06:07, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Nominated.--Yousaf465 (talk) 06:53, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

How to delete a file

Hello.
I want to delete File:Hammsterr.tiff. How to do it? --DannisD (talk) 10:38, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The exact procedure depends on several factors such as: who uploaded the file, why you want to delete it, and whether the file is in use. See Commons:Deletion policy for details. --Teratornis (talk) 17:04, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Complicated

I just want to upload a few images to supplement an existing Wikipedia article, which seems to be half based on my website, bit only partially accurate

I just can't believe how complicated it is, I think I will give up, and use an external link to my website — Preceding unsigned comment added by STONECHAT (talk • contribs) 11:41, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

See: User:Teratornis/Why is Commons so complicated? If you would like to actually get some help, you could tell us the name of the article, give us a link to the photo you allude to, and someone could upload it to Commons for you, that is assuming you have released the photo under a suitably free license. --Teratornis (talk) 17:09, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

File:XP-79.jpg

This file is causing problem, not leaving wikipedia to move here.It link is [1]--Yousaf465 (talk) 17:40, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

See COM:EIC#MoveToCommons for links to everything I have found about this subject. Did you try to use CommonsHelper? That always worked for me. Also, you can link to an image file on the English Wikipedia like this: w:File:XP-79.jpg; see w:Help:Interwiki linking. --Teratornis (talk) 18:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I did try commonshelper, it created the page but when I tried to import it said bad file name.--Yousaf465 (talk) 18:50, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I had that problem once. I had to tell CommonsHelper to import the file to a different name. The w:File:XP-79.jpg filename may be too short. Try adding some more words to the destination filename. I that doesn't work, maybe the hyphen is causing a problem. You will need to update any Wikipedia articles that use the file so they link to the new filename on Commons. --Teratornis (talk) 04:30, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

AWB

how to use AWB in commons.--Yousaf465 (talk) 18:54, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

In AWB, go to Options → Preferences. Under the site tab choose commons. --Yarnalgo (talk) 00:16, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
I believe you also need approval (Commons:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage).-Andrew c (talk) 00:21, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
I already got that.--Yousaf465 (talk) 05:07, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Got it.Will check it.--Yousaf465 (talk) 05:38, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Source problem

  • source not working
    source not working
  • source not working
    source not working
  • source not working
    source not working

What should we do with these two images.--Yousaf465 (talk) 06:09, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

There's no reason to doubt the source URL was at one time valid. I'd recommend contacting the website with the two URLs and asking where the images moved to. Other related images may be affected as well. Dcoetzee (talk) 06:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
See the pages linked from COM:EIC#LinkRot. In particular: w:Wikipedia:Using the Wayback Machine. Here are a few examples of the archiveurl parameter in use. --Teratornis (talk) 17:32, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
That template is not working here.There exif does confirm that they were produced by US military.Should we confirm it?--Yousaf465 (talk) 03:38, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
In case of US Military photos with former working weblinks you can also just enter the imagename e.g. 060203-F-7823A-008 to Google and you will get a new page: http://www.defenselink.mil/photos/newsphoto.aspx?newsphotoid=7616. I correct this first one because I hade messed imagedescriptions. --Martin H. (talk) 00:52, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

How to change comment?

How to change comment text in File History,I think on the category i write false category? --Boksi (talk) 09:55, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

w:WP:FILLINEDITSUMMARY says:
  • After you save the page, you cannot edit the summary.
  • In the case of important omissions or errors in the edit summary, you can make a dummy edit just to put the correction in the edit summary.
--Teratornis (talk) 17:35, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

You can edit this my summary then,please File:Blooming Cherry Tree.jpg --Boksi (talk) 18:40, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

We cannot edit any edit summaries, as the software does not allow it. If you are concerned about the red linked category name that appears in the image file's history, don't worry about it. You corrected the error in the category link on the file page, which is what matters. File page histories tend to get junked up with red links anyway, because sometimes people rename categories to new names, and there is no way to update the old names in the history. Anyone who understands how to use Commons will not be bothered by the typographical error in the file history. --Teratornis (talk) 20:59, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

help with image credit and licensing

Dear All - I don't know how to credit the photo found at the following address. Is it "CC-Presidency of Argentina website". File:Mercedes sosa.jpg

Thanks so much for any and all help Janeshaw (talk) 21:00, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean by "credit"? Do you plan to use the photo elsewhere? It looks as if most if not all photos in the Cristina Fernández de Kirchner gallery page use the {{CC-AR-Presidency}} template, which means they are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license. See Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia, in particular the CC-BY-SA section. --Teratornis (talk) 03:01, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Bbq_182_new.JPG

Please replace File:Bbq_182.JPG with File:Bbq_182_new.JPG. Thanks. -- The-pulse (talk) 00:38, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

When your account gets autoconfirmed in a few days, you can upload a new image on top of the old image. --Teratornis (talk) 03:03, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Book Cover

I'm confused. I see book covers, DVD covers, etc., all over Wikipedia. Obviously these are copyrighted images. I want to upload a book cover of my own book to illustrate the already existing entry about the book. How do I do that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr. Paraiso (talk • contribs) 15:59, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

You must upload it to wikipedia, not commons. In the left hand men of wikipedia click "upload file" then select "it is the cover of a book, DVD ect..." Million Moments (talk) 16:43, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Commons does not accept fair use content. However, if you own the copyright to your book, I think you should be able to upload an image of the cover to Commons if you follow the procedure in COM:OTRS so we may properly record and archive your written permission. If your publisher designed the book cover, the publisher may hold a separate copyright to that part of the work, and then you will need to get their permission as well, I think. This is complicated because Commons is a Free content repository, but most of the content in the world is not free. If the peoples of the world would agree to abolish copyright law (or replace it with Copyleft), then everything would be simple - anyone could do anything they please with any content they like. Multiply the time you are spending on this problem by all the copyrighted content out there, and try to imagine how much wealth generating potential the human race is currently throwing away due to this Tragedy of the anticommons. --Teratornis (talk) 18:08, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
The basic problem is that copyright law evolved from centuries ago, before computers became cheap and powerful. Now the computer has enabled everyone to publish and share content inexpensively. Copyright law implicitly assumes that the physical means to publish information belongs only to a small number of people, who were relatively straightforward to regulate, and who could justify the expense of hiring attorneys to help them navigate the copyright laws. The average person was not greatly affected. Now copyright law expands its regulation against anyone with a computer. Yochai Benkler writes about this problem. --Teratornis (talk) 18:35, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all for your prompt responses. I will attempt to upload image directly to Wikipedia...as soon as Wikipedia allows me to do so. (I just registered the other day.) And then I will return to this page and ask what I'm doing wrong.--Mr. Paraiso

Bank notes

File:Local ban notes-reus-tanger 0001.jpg has been uploaded using a GNU liscence. Can this be correct for a banknote, as the person uploading the image is uploading a derivitive work, and they do not own the copyright to the original design? Million Moments (talk) 16:49, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

See Commons:Currency which gives guidelines for some countries. --Teratornis (talk) 18:12, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Commons:Currency does not seem to cover banknotes of Catalonia. You might need to ask on Commons talk:Currency if nobody answers your question here. --Teratornis (talk) 18:26, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
GFDL is wrong anyway, this is not a derivative work, but only a simple reproduction. The image should be tagged with the license of the bank note, which might be PD or none at all, making this a copyvio. Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 22:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Ok well according to Commons:Licensing#Spain pieces of work which are "a collective work where individual authors are not identifiable", if publiched before 1987, are public domain after 80 years. Would everyone agree that banknotes older than 80 years thus come under this rule? Million Moments (talk) 09:54, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Pictures and License

I am uploading cover art mostly for games that are missing it Wikipedia, but when trying to select the licensing, nothing comes close to what I see for pictures of covers already used for other sections:

"This image is cover art for a video or computer game, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by either the game's publisher or developer. It is believed that the use of low-resolution images of game cover art to illustrate the packaging of the game in question on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, constitutes fair use under United States copyright law. Other uses of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, might be copyright infringement. See Wikipedia:Non-free content for more information."

How do I go about adding simply cover art/ box covers in terms of licens/permissions?

You need to do this on Wikipedia. Go to upload file then select "A cover or other page from a book, DVD, newspaper, magazine, or other such source." Under Liscencing select "Video Game Cover." Fill out all the other information in the template as well. Million Moments (talk) 15:00, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Converting & uploading video

I've just taken some video of some birds which I was wanting to upload. First time I've experimented using the video setting on my camera, but it's come out well enough to be worth using (tho' 33 megabytes long). It has come out of my camera as an .avi file, which isn't in the list of uploadable file types. How do I convert an .avi file into an .ogg file? Thanks! - MPF (talk) 13:59, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

You can use Media convert to do the conversion online. Pruneautalk 15:30, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! Will try it if I've not got anything on my hard drive that'll do it. - MPF (talk) 20:04, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

hello

i have tried to upload two images (Triptychon Inti Raymi and Triptychon Maha Kumbh Mela) and all the necessary informations to Wikimedia Commons. Now i can find the informations there but not the pictures, just a sign "X" instead of the shots... Could you, please, help? What has gone wrong? Greetings and Thanx Dr. mullah (talk) 09:35, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

It works now. Maybe it just took some time for the thumbnail to get generated. --rimshottalk 14:25, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Uploading files

I've upload several files to include on the page I'm creating for North Cross School (am currently an intern there). The files are images from the school's website. A few days after I've added them to the page they are no longer there, what is the problem and how do I get around it?

First of all, please sign your posts with --~~~~, so that we have a chance of finding out which images you are talking about. If the files were deleted, there should be notices on your talk page. These will usually give you some hint on why the files were deleted. Please note that being an intern at a school does not give you the copyright to images on the school's website. You would still a need permission from the copyright owner, which may or may not be the school, to publish the images under a license acceptable at Commons. --rimshottalk 14:42, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Cormac McCarthy

See Commons:Village_pump#Cormac_McCarthy —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dcoetzee (talk • contribs) 21:39, April 12, 2009 (UTC)

doubts about rights to images

User:Badduh has uploaded quite a few images of sailing ships of very low resolution and seemingly a wide range of ages and backgrounds. There's no information whatsoever in the files, except a license template (example). I have a pretty bad feeling about this (i.e. I have my doubts about his rights to the images), but don't know what the best procedure would be. His discussion page is already plastered with comments about his images. Suggestions? Thanks, Ibn Battuta (talk) 22:14, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

It looks like the user has not been active on Commons lately. The user may be more active on the Dutch Wikipedia; see for example nl:Defender. However, the user appears to be a drive-by user there as well, but maybe the user at least looks at the Dutch Wikipedia and might see a talk page message notification there. It looks like many or maybe all of those images are or will be coming up for deletion. So I guess this problem is under control. --Teratornis (talk) 21:49, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

How to put an image in an article

Dear Sir,

I have a image witch I can use because it is in the public domein. It is already in my gallery, but how can I get in in my artikel?

Friendly greetings,

Miranda Wentink. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mwentink (talk • contribs) 23:51, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

If you refer to File:Margherita barezzi2-1-.jpg which you uploaded, and you want to display it in an article on one of the Wikipedias, see w:Help:Images and other uploaded files. For example, you could use code like this:
[[File:Margherita barezzi2-1-.jpg|thumb|right|150px|your caption goes here]]
--Teratornis (talk) 21:02, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

About Gene1.jpg

About the photo Gene1.jpg (of Gene Roddenberry). Is it perfectly ok if I use the photo to put say ona bvook cover(I have done nothing yet and I won't even possibly unless you reply in the affirmative). Or do I need soem permission. The only directions I understand is when they outright saya a photo is in public domain! Thanks Carol N. Please email me at <removed to prevent spam> with the answer — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.194.208.132 (talk • contribs) 01:30, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

See Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia. And sorry, but we don't reply to questions via e-mail. --Teratornis (talk) 02:06, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

No category, need advice on picking a suitable category

My recent file (shown) has no category. This was intentional, but perhaps the 'bot that left a message for me can be satisfied by a category, but I need help in finding. As stated in the description of the photo, the Academy of Music in Philadelphia is undergoing renovations, but I posted a photo and linked to it from Wikipedia User Doncram's talk page to say that I was responding to his request for a photo, but because of the renovations, I would not post this particular photo.

So, is there a category that will satisfy the 'bot but not lead very many users to the photo? I await your help and advice. --Davidt8 (talk) 17:50, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Sure. Category:Music conservatories, and Category:Buildings in Philadelphia. Being currently unoccupied doesn't knock it out of those cats. Also, being a less than excellent photo does not. If many good pix of the subject were already present, you'd have reason to be shy, but a quick search does not show them, so it happens that you have uploaded one of the best. If you can find narrower and more precise categories, all the better. I do wish we had a simpler standard explanation of using cats than Commons:Categories, however. Jim.henderson (talk) 18:17, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Agree, those are two good categories for the image. If you're not sure of the best categories, just give them some reasonable categories you can think of (eg, "Category:Buildings" and "Category:Pennsylvania" are not as good as the more specific categories reccomended above, but would be of some use and other users would probably later nudge the image into the better more specific categories.) Please don't rely on the bot to categorize images. The vast majority of the bot generated categories are things no real person would think are appropriate, and if BotMultichill were a person it would probably be blocked for an astonishing string of vandalism. (I'm not sure why the bot is given as much latitude as it is.) Agree again with Jim.henderson that images should be categorized even if they aren't the best possible image. If you wish to hide an image, Commons is not a good place for it. Cheers, -- Infrogmation (talk) 19:04, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Commons may actually be a good place to hide an image, if it is of a very obscure subject, or if the photo has lots of competition (e.g., Category:White cats). We have lots of photos that could be in Wikipedia articles, but are not, either because the photos are hard for people to find, or they don't even think to look for them. If you want to signal that your photo is of low quality, you can put it into Category:Images of low quality. See Category:Image cleanup templates for other ways to discourage other people from using the current revision of the photo. --Teratornis (talk) 06:15, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Categories are part of why Commons is so complicated. It would be difficult to write an introduction to categories that would be reliably simple, because it's hard to know where the user is entering into the underlying complexity. We could write a very simple manual for one particular user, if we could see the photo he or she wants to categorize. But there are so many possibilities - any general document has to handle all the conditional branches. For example, what if a suitable category does not exist, and the user needs to extend the category structure? That is not easy to explain to someone who has not yet used MediaWiki's category feature before. --Teratornis (talk) 06:22, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, narrow categories are (mostly) better than broad cats, and every week I push dozens of pix down to narrower cats, link a cat or two to new parents, and create a new subcat every few weeks. But an overly broad cat is much better than no cat, since it brings the pic to the attention of cat pushers like me who can take it from there. Remember even this relatively small Wikiproject has many different people with many different skills and we need not study what someone else is doing well enough. So, no, I don't see why the category intro for uploaders need say when and how to create subcats. It's a specialty, and we're better off with most newbies learning to handle cats clumsily, than with a few learning to juggle them nimbly while many give up due to having too much complexity thrown at them when first they learn to upload. I've seen too many uncategorized categories, or more particularly isolated cat trees that eat their own tail and are unlinked to the great universal category tree, to favor persuading everyone to make new cats.
As for the pic in question, cleanup won't help problems that include being there when the building is covered up for construction work, and being unable to stand at a place whence the whole facade can be included in one shot. However, us photo-geographers generally prefer a bad shot to no shot. For subjects that have no good Wikiphoto, I upload plenty of pictures this bad, and am glad when they disappear from a Wikipedia article because a more skilled or lucky shutterbug got a better shot. So, no, don't be shy about your mediocre picture. Upload, describe and categorize it, and hope another photographer is inspired (or disgusted) enough to go out and snap a better one to replace it.
And if you understand the categories of a particular topic or area pretty well, become a cat wrangler. It's not as glamorous as photography, but it has its rewards and you can think of yourself as a member of a small, little known, highly skilled elite.

Jim.henderson (talk) 17:50, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the encouraging words, Jim. I am still deciding on my specialty, or specialties, here and on Wikipedia, but I will continue to add photos of Philadelphia, whether landmarks or not, and also photos of ordinary streets. I am trying to understand the categories appropriate for Philadelphia, and I have looked at other east coast cities for comparison. Perhaps I will post a question on your talk page after some time for reflection. --Davidt8 (talk) 12:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
Always plenty to do. Photography is perhaps the most fun since it gets us outside in the springtime. A few hours ago I uploaded half a dozen pix of Manhattan, the majority of which went immediately into WP articles and all into more than one category. These weren't geocoded because my geocoding camera doesn't work between tall buildings. Then came time to review oversized Manhattan categories and, wondering what to do with a few Little Italy pix (not mine) I noticed that there's an underutilized and undercategorized Category:Ethnic neighborhoods in the United States so there went the pix in question as well as Manhattan's Koreatown category. And catted the newly parental cat into Category:Ethnic groups in the United States which needs a bunch more cat wrangling to shrink many of its contents into several carefully selected and a few carefully created subcats.
Feel free to ask on my personal talk page. Not that that's a generally good idea for technical questions, but as far as I know we don't have a bunch of different help desk pages for categories, layouts, retouches, templates, and other specialties of Commons, so mine can serve somewhat. No more photographic expeditions for me until the weekend, which will be the Cherry Blossom Festival in en:Branch Brook Park and other places in Category:Newark, New Jersey. Jim.henderson (talk) 05:51, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • If your camera did not geocode some photos, you can look up the coordinates and manually edit the {{Location}} template on the file page.
  • COM:EIC#Help and COM:EIC#Discuss list links to all the group discussion pages I have found so far on Commons. If you know of any more, please add them. See for example COM:DI and {{Discussion menu}}.
  • Group discussion pages are generally better than user talk pages when a discussion could impact, or usefully inform, more users than just the two who are discussing at the moment. However, any discussion is better than no discussion, so do whatever you find most appropriate.
--Teratornis (talk) 17:49, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Creating a Category

How to create a image category on commons?--Boksi (talk) 17:34, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Commons:Categories#Creating a new category. --Teratornis (talk) 01:35, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Categories can be a little confusing in the beginning so if you have any specific questions after reading the directions above don't hesitate to ask. --Captain-tucker (talk) 09:08, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Also see w:Help:Category for basic instruction. When I was new, I had to read that page several times over a span of several days before it started to make sense. Categories can be confusing because in some ways they work very differently than ordinary wikilinks. --Teratornis (talk) 17:16, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Uploading Equation JPEGS

I am not being allowed to upload JPEG images of equations.

Please advise on my talkpage, if possible. -- Logger9 (talk) 21:37, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

You should not create JPEGs of equations (PNG format is more appropriate) and you should use the wiki math syntax wherever possible, as described at en:Wikipedia:TeX_markup. Dcoetzee (talk) 21:49, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
Your talk page shows that you are uploading JPEG images without any categories. The messages you see on your talk page are encouraging you to add a category to these images. --Davidt8 (talk) 21:54, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
Also, please give your images unique and descriptive names. "Equation.jpg" is not a good file name (and "Equation 99.jpg" is no better). —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 23:34, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

File:2d MEB - Task Force Leatherneck insignia (transparent background) 01.png

I just added this file. Why doesn’t it show up in “My Contributions”? Thanks! FieldMarine (talk) 00:07, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

File contributions are not listed along with textual contributions. Instead, click the "logs" link at the top of your contributions page to view your upload log. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:32, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Is that something added recently because a whole bunch of images I added show up under "My Contributions" each with a "N" in front of it. FieldMarine (talk) 02:26, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

In Special:Contributions/FieldMarine I see this entry:
which you did after you posted your question to the Help desk. Your first edit to the file page seemed to trigger the N. Then you have a following upload in which the upload itself seems to generate the first entry:
Did you use different upload methods for these two files? --Teratornis (talk) 04:18, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what happened here, but the N & file info was added after I made a correction to the file. I used the same method I always use for adding files. Anyway, it is now there so issue resolved. FieldMarine (talk) 03:31, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

how am i allowed to upload my company logo?

I would like to upload my company logo - am i allowed to?

Thanks Mickyounger (talk) 08:55, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

If the logo does not meet a minimal threshold of originality it can be loaded as PD logo using appropriate tags like {{PD-textlogo}} or {{PD-shape}}. Otherwise, we would need a permission by the copyright holder through OTRS. --AFBorchert (talk) 09:44, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
It does also have to be within our project scope, thanks --Herby talk thyme 09:47, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
And, to finish, don't forget that commercial use must be allowed. →Diti the penguin — 11:15, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
See COM:CB#Trademarks and Category:Logos for some examples. --Teratornis (talk) 18:35, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Request for information on The History of the Nation (a book?)

Since Commons has many who hunt for old publications to obtain public domain illustrations, maybe someone knows of this. There exists a work, The History of the Nation, possibly printed in the early half of the 20th century. Several paintings have been noted to be published in it.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] However, I am unable to locate such a book on Worldcat or Google. Does anyone have information that pertain to this work? Jappalang (talk) 02:26, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

You could try asking a real human reference librarian, but he or she would probably go straight to WorldCat, so that would only help if the librarian knows more about searching WorldCat than you do. (Which might be possible if they search for books every day.) That's what I would try if you don't get any help here. --Teratornis (talk) 06:16, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Tif and png problem

Having uploaded an improved and larger version of File:Dead letter office.jpg the file doe not display. The upload page where I uploaded

says that tif is an accepted file type but there is the display problem, so I converted it to png and uploaded that as File:Dead letter office.png but that gives a thumbnail error "TypeError: document.getElementById("file").getElementsByTagName("img")[0] is undefined". I don't know what to do or even understand the problem. I spent a long time cleaning up this old LOC image and don't want to see the work wasted, so any advise is welcome. Ww2censor (talk) 19:37, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow, that looks like a tough problem to figure out. Searching for the error message with Google finds some pages, but none that immediately shed light. COM:FAQ#Why is the old picture and not the new uploaded picture on my screen? (Or-- my thumbnail is wrong.) lists some things you could try. You might have to ask on the village pump or perhaps better the graphics village pump if no one can answer here. Depending on how much troubleshooting your end up having to do yourself, one method might be to install mw:Manual:Wiki on a stick and then you can practice uploading images to your own Personal wiki, thereby being able to see what is going on. But that would be a lot of work just to troubleshoot one image problem. --Teratornis (talk) 21:20, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
The basic problem is, that a) AFAIK we don't render thumbs of TIF file for some reason, I think they are not implemented yet and b) your PNG files does not render a thumb because our renderer does not support files with more than 12.5 million pixels. The only solution is to upload a smaller version for thumb purposes and link from its file description page to the hi-res version. I see you already did this, so there's not much left to do. Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 21:58, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Curious, because the png file is only 8.07Mb, so that theory can't be right. Of course I can upload a smaller file but I was under the impression that larger files were supported. I can't find a FAQ or other help page that covers the criteria except for Commons:File types and Commons:First steps/Quality and description, neither of which actually helps me solve my problem. Thanks folks. Ww2censor (talk) 23:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
There are several relevant parameters in mediawiki beyond file upload size. The thumbnail creation requires significant process memory, which seems to be set very low. In our own installation of mediawiki we have been able to overcome this problem. Perhaps the settings on Commons could be increased as well; the failure to render thumbnails of high-res pictures is a long standing problem of commons. --G.Hagedorn (talk) 01:28, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Template deletion

What is the process by which a template may be nominated for deletion on Commons? I believe {{PD-FLGov}} is based on a grave confusion between the definitions of "public record" and "public domain". The statute cited does, indeed, indicate that Florida's governmental documents are public record, but Florida clearly reserves copyright. Note that the Florida Statutes themselves bear the notice "Copyright © 1995-2009 The Florida Legislature". According to the State's official website: "MyFlorida.com is owned and operated by THE STATE OF FLORIDA, DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT SERVICES (referred to as "DMS" herein). No material from MyFlorida.com or any Web site owned, operated, licensed or controlled by THE STATE OF FLORIDA or DMS may be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any way. Materials may be downloaded on any single personal computer, for non-commercial use only providing all copyright and other proprietary notices are kept intact. Modification of the materials or use of the materials for any other purpose is a violation of THE STATE OF FLORIDA and DMS's copyright and other proprietary rights." As Florida's governments works are not public domain, this template is obviously misleading and could result in serious legal liabilities to the project. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:21, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

It looks like there is no separate page for template deletion requests. Deletion requests for all types of pages seem to go through Commons:Deletion requests. --Teratornis (talk) 20:49, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the response. (And hi! :D) I'll delay any further steps on this one pending opinion by the Foundation's attorney. Apparently the right of the state to assert this copyright may be denied by its courts. If the Foundation is okay with it, there's no reason to remove it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:09, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
The Florida statues aren't copyright, no matter what a Florida court says; as per the Wikisource template PD-EdictGov, laws of any government, local or foreign aren't copyrightable in the US.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:48, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
The concern here is not mainly about the statutes so much as other documents produced by the Florida State government. Dcoetzee (talk) 06:56, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
How does it matter that the state government claims copyright? The ruling cited by this template clearly states that a state official has no right to attach any conditions of any sort to the use of public records. This position is further strengthened by the fact that the website claims copyright on the laws: if the webmaster doesn't know that laws aren't copyrighted, perhaps s/he doesn't know that other state government works are public domain too. Nyttend (talk) 01:22, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

How to categorize an image

I have uploaded my first article/image and have had a note from an editor asking me to put a category on it? I am stuck, is this on my actual document which I uploaded (so I have to edit and uplaod again) or is it to do with where it now sits in commons? I can see lots of talk about this but not clear how to do it? Thanks, Noelj1 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.89.155 (talk • contribs) 16:53, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

It is simple after you have done it once. Tell us what the file name is and we will do it for you- and then tell you what we have done. --ClemRutter (talk) 17:56, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

If you would post while logged in, we could look at your contributions to see what image you are writing about. You do not have to upload the image again to categorize it. Instead you click the "edit" link on the image page to add categories. For example, look at my file namespace edits to see several examples of categorizing images, such as this diff. Often you can find suitable categories by copying and pasting keywords from your image description to the "search" box at the upper left of every page. --Teratornis (talk) 05:10, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Category in itself?

I'm not a new user, but I'd like help with Category:Gazebos. It's a category redirect to Category:Pavilions, but it's listed as being in Category:Gazebos. I never knew that it was possible for a category to be a subcategory of itself, but the most confusing bit is that there's nothing in the code for the category that would place it inside itself — the entire text of the code is {{Category redirect|Pavilions}}. Any ideas what's happening? Nyttend (talk) 01:08, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, all Category:Category redirects have this problem, they have themself as a subcategory. Something with Template:See cat, will check it. --Martin H. (talk) 01:35, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Now I see, this is intended. Maybe we should search for a better solution. --Martin H. (talk) 01:38, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
That would explain why I'd never seen it before. Yes, it would be better! Nyttend (talk) 02:27, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

This is only temporary. It will be gone in a day or so. Rocket000 (talk) 14:41, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

ok, thank you, then ✓ Done. --Martin H. (talk) 14:54, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Bug with apostrophe in file name - keep page for debugging / verification?

When creating File:Orvieto Chiesa Sant'Andrea aisle view.jpg I believe I uncovered a bug in mediawiki. The bug is described on the page. I have uploaded the file again as: File:Orvieto Chiesa Sant Andrea aisle view.jpg, but propose to keep the version with "'" until the bug could be verified or removed.

I searched for the bug on the programmer bug reporting system ("bugzilla"), but could not find it. I appreciate if someone could verify the bug and perhaps report it on the bugzilla system. If the page File:Orvieto Chiesa Sant'Andrea aisle view.jpg is not longer needed, it can be deleted any time --G.Hagedorn (talk) 01:23, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I already tested it with File:Test ' in name.jpg. Its a bug, the software thinks the ' is the begining of the file extension. I dont know how to report bugs in bugzilla. --Martin H. (talk) 01:31, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
OK, I marked my own page for speedy deletion, your test page will be more appropriate. Added the bug info on the new page as well. --G.Hagedorn (talk) 01:38, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Added as bug 18500 --G.Hagedorn (talk) 11:07, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Thank you very much Gregor. Seems like we need someone to implement the fix. --Martin H. (talk) 13:43, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Latest Files

Is there any way I can view "Latest Files" without having to scroll through Maps, Picon, and other indecipherable picture of text pages? These photos are a waste of time and resources for 99% of your viewers, and a complete waste of space for you!

How can you ask for donations when you support such garbage?

A dedicated viewer.

The latest files are a special page of recently uploaded files - except server imports like the Deutsche Fotothek images. The page is not for vanity or something, thats just the stuff people upload here. The special page does not take any space, it is simply the visualisation of the upload log. --Martin H. (talk) 23:40, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
(p.s.: The latest files are full of copyright violations and other trash, so its by far nothing to promote or represent our efforts here ;) )--Martin H. (talk) 23:43, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
If you want to see the latest files matching certain preference criteria, you need a Collaborative filtering system. We don't have one yet. Building one would cost money. That's why we ask for money. If Commons was perfect, we wouldn't need any money. --Teratornis (talk) 01:14, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Help request

Problems in viewing images in a wiki article : I've created a wiki article : Michel-Auguste Colle.

I've tried to insert images in the text. So, I've uploaded 4 images in commons, named :

Michel-Auguste Colle.jpg

File:Michel-Auguste Colle.jpg

M-A Colle Vase Cristal.jpg

File:M-A Colle Vase Cristal.jpg

M-A Colle Paysage.jpg

File:M-A Colle Paysage.jpg

M-A Colle marais salants.jpg

File:M-A Colle marais salants.jpg

But only the first one appears in the article after editing. I don't understand why. --Christian Audoly (talk) 20:10, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

You can see the names if the images you have uploaded by clicking on "my contributions" at top right of the screen. In order to see your images you have to use the exact upload name (names are case sensitive, incuding the file-extension, so you need to use, for example, File:M-A Colle Vase Cristal.JPG rather than File:M-A Colle Vase Cristal.jpg. The first time I came across that it had me fooled for ages. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:21, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

image replacement

I have uploaded a new version of Image:Sparkline_dowjones.svg as Image:Sparkline_dowjones_new.svg and the message indicating my account is too new said that I should ask here to have mine moved as a new version of the existing one. The visible change that I made was to darken the line. The more practical change was to remove non-visible markup consuming 99% of the filesize and to unnoticably lower the precision of the constants within the file.

I updated the file File:Eastern-orthodoxy-world-by-country.png to File:Eastern-orthodoxy-world-by-country1.png and have the same error.I added Egypt as it has an orthodox ratio >10%

I think you shold talk to your Web Hosting company about how to add this feature to your personalized logos. I worked for the tech dept on one of these companys and I`m sure they can do something about it. I cannot help you cuz I didnt manage this procedure... sorry...

I am trying to replace a copy of the file Image:EightTNOs.png. I have just created an account so I am not able to replace files yet. I have updated the image and my changes are detailed on the image page. The file is called Image:EightTNOs_new.png. Could someone please replace the old version with mine. Thanks, Dave.

The same question as above: I have modified Image:SI-metrication-world.png and uploaded a new version called Image:SI-metrication-world-2009-14-04.png. Please could someone overwrite the original for me. Thanks. Dc01234 (talk) 04:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

When your Commons account becomes autoconfirmed, you should be able to upload a new version of an image. See Special:ListGroupRights and Commons:Autoconfirmed users. Also, new questions should go at the bottom of the Help desk, otherwise Help desk volunteers may not notice them. --Teratornis (talk) 17:54, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I have modify Image:Coordonnées.svg to Image:Coordonnées-new.svg because I and J point where misplace. Can sommeone move the new file to the old file, and then delete mine. TrantorFr (talk) 14:24, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Ogg file undecodable?

Hi,

My first try with putting a small movie on Commons (not even sure if it's any good quality, but that was what I wanted to find out) and I can't seem to get it right. I made an ogg-file from my avi (yay!), but now File:Shivering male peacock.ogg says: Stream is undecodable because the picture width is greater than the frame width. What does that mean? I tried downscaling, but appearently that doesn't help. Anyone any good idea's (without getting to technical :P)? Ciell (talk) 08:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

You have a technical problem. Whatever you used to convert it screwed the job up. If you don't want technical answers, there's nothing you can do about, besides using another tool.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:36, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Omar Sangare

I have added an image only once before and obviously forgot all the nitty-gritty of it. The image of Omar Sangare.jpg is from Polish language anaul "Strumien". I have full legal rights to it. I'm giving it a full free licences rights for Wikipedia and its users (or anyone else for that matter). How do I fix the problem? yours, --Bepege (talk) 09:08, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

  • I have downloaded it again under name: "Omar Sangare_actor". Added a proper license (I hope)and description. Hope this is OK. sorry for inconvenience I might have caused, --Bepege (talk) 10:20, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
File:OmarSangare.jpg deleted as the duplicate file, and fixed the information template on File:OmarSangare actor.jpg. I have removed the PD-Self template as you did not take the image, but your photographer did. The GFDL-1.2 remains. To be sure, I would still like you to send an email to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org from your work-email stating who you are and that you own the copyright to the image (due to it being created for the magazine specifically - we might even need an email from the photographer himself, but not 100% certain of that if the magazine (who commissioned it) releases it.) You can find an example template at Commons:Email templates. -- Deadstar (msg) 14:38, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Wrong symbol

Hello, I'm from the hebrew Wikipedia, and i have noticed that something is wrong with File:Venezuelacoatofarms 1954 2006.svg (when it appeared in the main page in the hebrew wikipedia). It was near the new symbol of Venezuela and, as you can see there, the year of independence in the file is wrong (1910 instead 1810, in the left-down corner) and there is no date in the right side. The colors are bit different, too. Can you take care of this problems/change the picture (if I'm right)? I didn't know where to write it, so i wrote it here. Thank you, Nir909 (talk) 14:23, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

You could try asking the person who uploaded the file. Look in the History section of the File:Venezuelacoatofarms 1954 2006.svg page. The uploader was User:Rolf obermaier. If you want to edit the file yourself, you need an SVG editor such as Inkscape. --Teratornis (talk) 19:14, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
The last edit that the user had done was in November, as you can see. I don't think that he will answer. I don't know how to edit images, so i wont edit (because of this i have written here). I have asked here, hoping that someone in Commons will edit. There is one more option, if none knows how to edit this image - to delete it. Nir909 (talk) 20:05, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Asking the uploader is easy. If he does not answer, you could ask on COM:GVP. It seems some users are there who can edit SVGs. --Teratornis (talk) 21:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

editing historical files

I have a problem. According to the copyright license it is officially allowed to edit the picture. But it is an historical picture. It is made in 1944. This is the picture: [9]

And this is the edit of the picture:

[10]

What are your thoughts about it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Citypeek (talk • contribs) 04:15, 21 April 2009 (UTC) (UTC)

You're talking about File:Tigertank.jpg. Yes, the license allows you to do that: the image originally was under UK Crown Copyright, which has expired since. No, your modifications are not an improvement: oversharpened, way too much contrast, and JPEG compression artefacts are more visible. Besides, the size of your modified version in four times that of the original.
In general, one should be very careful with digitally modifying representations of historic images. Removing blemishes that are due to the age of the original and imperfect storage conditions is ok (removing scratches and dust, or trying to undo fading of old photos). See also Commons:Restoration. In any case, restoration attempts should be uploaded separately, not over the original. Lupo 13:23, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I thought so. So I will upload the new version under a different name. Then your remarks about the lack of improvement. No, I didn't change the size of the original. It is just the way the site flickr shows it (large). Oversharpened? Look at the lorry in the background. It is blurred. Citypeek (talk) 13:53, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Permission/images

I recently uploaded a photo of Beverley Mahood and understand that I need to get explicit permission from the author (in this case, the photographer). I have the e-mail template and am planning on getting this from him. Just wondering what I need to do to the file page after I get his permission in an email (and send it to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org). — Preceding unsigned comment added by SDawley (talk • contribs) 15:22, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

See COM:OTRS. --Teratornis (talk) 18:28, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Photo file

I've uploaded a photo file into an author info box. Above the photo it says: [[Image: |200 pxl]]

How do I get rid of it?

Also, the caption is to the left of the picture rather than underneath. How do I move it underneath?

Here's the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rosen_(Author)

Thanks in advance.

Read info from template page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_Writer --Typ932 (talk) 17:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you!

upload logo of a Foundation

Hi,

I am a newbie in wikipedia. I have seen a lot of information on different Foundations in wikipedia. Therefore I want to do the same thing by uploading a page on a local Foundation in Brunei, my country, but apparently I am totally clueless on which license (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Upload) should I go for when it comes to uploading the Foundation's logo. FYI, I am currently working for the Foundation.

My question is: which license should I pick for me to upload the logo of the Foundation?YSHHB (talk) 02:55, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you.

See Commons:Licensing and COM:CB#Trademarks. And read two questions above. If you want us to guess whether the logo is copyrightable, you will have to tell us how to see it. --Teratornis (talk) 06:02, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Our foundation is a non-profit organisation, and apparently the logo is not copyrightable. you can view the logo at the top left side of our website: Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah FoundationYSHHB (talk) 01:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't see anything explicitly applicable in Help:Public domain nor in Category:License tags. We have a Category:Brunei but in my cursory glance I did not find any images which set a precedent you could follow. But I did not look at all the images there. If the logo is not copyrightable, that suggests it is in the public domain. It would be nice to have some proof of that. See for example {{PD-USGov}}, which we can use to declare works of the U.S. government as being in the public domain. That template cites the governing statute. Ideally we should have a similar template to mark works from Brunei which are not copyrightable. Since Brunei is not a large country, we have not had many uploads from it yet, and thus we might not have worked out the rules for copyright over various works originating in the country. We have a catch-all template: {{PD-because}}, which you can customize with a reason for a file being in the public domain, if it in fact is in the public domain. --Teratornis (talk) 07:05, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Author Vicki Myron

Resolvedfile:Vicki Myron.jpg is now in some categories. --Teratornis (talk) 19:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I have uploaded a photo of American author Vicki Myron, but I don't know a category, and I have not found the template that asks others to add a category for file:Vicki Myron.jpg. --Davidt8 (talk) 19:16, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Start with Category:Writers and drill down to something more specific. There are subcategories for writers by country, by genre, by gender, by century, etc. --Teratornis (talk) 05:07, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Deletion Review??

One of my image's was deleted on Commons, is there like a deletion review to see whether it should have been deleted because I know there is one like it on Wikipedia.--Blackwatch21 (talk) 21:26, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, there is Commons:Undeletion requests - is that what you're looking for? Nanonic (talk) 21:34, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
But non of your images was deleted, i checked your deleted contributions (thats only for admins) and you can check your log yourself: no red links. --Martin H. (talk) 21:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Also note that the English Wikipedia allows "fair use" images, and Commons does not. Thus there are some images on the English Wikipedia that cannot be on Commons. --Teratornis (talk) 18:50, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Help with upload

ResolvedI uploaded the photo, original poster categorized it. --Teratornis (talk) 00:11, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I have been tryin to upload this file http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveseven/3442023725/sizes/l/ which should have suitable license to commons, but when I try to upload only I get is this error message. "You do not have permission to do that, for the following reason:The name of the file you are uploading begins with PICT, DSC, image, ..., which is a non-descriptive name typically assigned automatically by digital cameras. Please choose a more descriptive name for your file." can someone help with this problem? --Typ932 (talk) 17:05, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

See COM:EIC#Flickr for links to our manuals and tools for uploading photos from Flickr. See the worked-out example that uses the Flinfo tool in: User talk:Teratornis#Uploading an image. I tried a few different methods to upload photos from Flickr, and the Flinfo tool was the only one that worked reliably for me. You can specify a descriptive filename on the upload form, after you use Flinfo to get your wikitext to paste into the upload form. --Teratornis (talk) 18:21, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I have tested it that way , doesnt work, there is some weird problem, nothing wokrs with this file, I have dowloaded it to my hard drive, used flinfo tool etc, I have also removed also all exif , modified picture with editor but nothing works with this file --Typ932 (talk) 19:11, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I tried uploading it for you: File:BMW automobile 1938.jpg and I didn't see any problems. I followed the procedure I documented today on my User:Teratornis/Flickr examples page for another photo I uploaded earlier. You will probably need to refine the categories and description for the photo. I did not change the output from Flinfo much. Note that I uploaded the largest photo file size, not the reduced size that you linked to in your original question. --Teratornis (talk) 22:03, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Thx Ill fix categories --Typ932 (talk) 22:09, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I assume you tried to upload the file as "1938 BMW 320.jpg" or something like that? That file name matches our title blacklist, since it only contains three letters; Teratornis' version passes, because it includes the word "automobile". The idea behind that blacklist rule is that generally file names composed mostly of numbers tend to be meaningless ones like "3442023725_091fa621a7_o.jpg" (which is the filename Flickr uses internally for that image). Alas, the name you tried to use was one of the rare examples of a meaningful and reasonable file name that just happens to be mostly numeric.
In general, such occasional false positives shouldn't cause too much trouble, since they can be easily worked around by adding a descriptive word like "automobile" to the file name. Unfortunately, the message we currently give when the blacklist is triggered is outdated and completely unhelpful. I wrote a better error message quite some time ago and tried to get help in translating it, but I didn't get many contributions. Maybe I didn't ask in the right place. Personally, I feel that, even with incomplete translations, the new message might still be better than the current one, but that's up to others to decide; I'm not an admin here on Commons, so I couldn't deploy it myself if I wanted to. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:07, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Your version of the error message is far better than the ambiguous thing we currently display. --Teratornis (talk) 20:14, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I just posted a translation request for it at meta:Translation requests. Hopefully, a horde of eager translators will descend upon it any moment now. :-) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 11:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Yep I noticed that blacklist yesterday and though the same, didnt catch that one because the error message was not telling that..

--Typ932 (talk) 15:02, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

My Wikimedia Commons "Gallery" will not display

Resolved

For several days before today (2009-04-22) I have not been able to get my "Gallery" (of my Commons photos) to display. I've tried Firefox, IE, and Safari. I can view individual photos (using a direct link) and they're all still in the system, but I can not access the entire "Gallery" page. I doubt it is my fault since it's a "database error", but if it is (somehow) my fault, it may possibly have been due to my adding a category to a photo and removing an earlier (possibly bot-generated) statement that the photo was uncategorized (this is a possible clue, not a definite explanation--I doubt anything I did could cause a database error). Anyway, the error message I get is as follows. I hope this helps debuggers. RCraig09 (talk) 17:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

A database error has occurred Query: SELECT cl_to as cat FROM categorylinks LEFT JOIN u_daniel_cache.commonswiki_nontopics ON namespace = 14 AND title = cl_to where cl_from = 6590611 AND id IS NULL Function: getCategories Error: 1146 Table 'u_daniel_cache.commonswiki_nontopics' doesn't exist (sql-s3)

That error message comes from the Toolserver. I will be very impressed if anyone who is reading this Help desk knows what to do about it. I found I could make the error go away by monkeying with the "Since:" and "Until:" parameters. It seems an error occurs when the "Until:" parameters is less than the value of 3 days. The most obvious workaround would be for you to make your own gallery user subpage. See for example mine. Making your own gallery page allows you to group and annotate your uploads any way you like. This is almost certainly better (and more reliable) than an undifferentiated program-generated gallery. Various programs that run on the Toolserver seem to have reliability problems. --Teratornis (talk) 18:36, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks to Teratornis for the new idea (making one's own gallery page). But since I use the Commons Gallery page mainly to verify OTRS permissions, I need to rely on the existing Gallery page where volunteers will catalog the copyright owners' permissions and show OTRS Approved status. Therefore, status is still UNresolved and if HelpDesk knows how to fix, please do so! Thanks, RCraig09 (talk) 20:16, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
UPDATE: The problem has disappeared in the 45 minutes since my last post. No action needed (for the time being at least). Thanks to any and all who helped. RCraig09 (talk) 20:57, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I noticed problems with CommonsHelper last night, but today it works. Previously I have seen intermittent problems with Flinfo as well. It seems when a problem occurs on the Toolserver, the solution is to wait for a few hours or days. I don't know if the Toolserver administrators need users to report problems. See Commons:Toolserver for a little information. --Teratornis (talk) 21:22, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Standard Wikipedia Icons

I am attempting to get a list of standard wikipedia icons for example sort of icons like these : 

       // <img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d6/Ambox_style.png" width="40" height="40" border="0" />

       // <img src="/skins-1.5/common/images/magnify-clip.png" width="15" height="11" alt="" />

       // <img alt="Sister project" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/40px-Commons-logo.svg.png" width="40" height="54" border="0" />

       //<img src="/skins-1.5/common/images/poweredby_mediawiki_88x31.png" alt="Powered by MediaWiki" />

       //<img src="/images/wikimedia-button.png" border="0" alt="Wikimedia Foundation"/>

       //http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/Wiktionary-logo-en.svg/50px-Wiktionary-logo-en.svg.png

       // http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5f/Disambig_gray.svg/30px-Disambig_gray.svg.png'

       // http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/fe/Unbalanced_scales.svg/45px-Unbalanced_scales.svg.png

       //http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Phoenician_kaph.svg/12px-Phoenician_kaph.svg.png

       //http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Globe.svg/25px-Globe.svg.png

       //http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Globe.svg/25px-Globe.svg.png

       // http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/Wikitext.svg/50px-Wikitext.svg.png

I don't know what to call them except that they are icons used in every article and may have nothing to do with the content of the article. Is there such a resource ? If so could you kind email me directly atharshiraz (AT) gmail (DOT)com? thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.2.218.132 (talk • contribs) 02:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "a list". You seem to have a list already. How did you find the icons in your list? What other icons do you want to find? Did you try searching for them? We have some categories, such as Category:Wikipedia icons, and we have some gallery pages, such as Wikipedia and Wiktionary logos, but there is no guarantee that other users will have properly categorized or galleried every image you seek. Sorry, but we do not send our Help desk replies to e-mail addresses - that is not how the Help desk works. --Teratornis (talk) 19:06, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
If you want to get a list of all the graphics that a particular MediaWiki wiki displays as part of its user interface, that will not be easy. You will have to know a lot about MediaWiki internals. See mw:How to become a MediaWiki hacker and read everything linked from w:WP:EIW#MediaWiki. Some graphics come with the MediaWiki software, and some result from customizations by the administrators of a particular wiki. This is not the type of thing that an ordinary end-user can easily investigate. Why do you want this list? --Teratornis (talk) 20:11, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Old images from a museum website

Hi, I was wondering if it was legal to take old photographs from this museum website: www.glenbow.org

I wanted this image: http://ww2.glenbow.org/search/archivesPhotosResults.aspx?AC=GET_RECORD&XC=/search/archivesPhotosResults.aspx&BU=&TN=IMAGEBAN&SN=AUTO20329&SE=162&RN=68&MR=10&TR=0&TX=1000&ES=0&CS=0&XP=&RF=WebResults&EF=&DF=WebResultsDetails&RL=0&EL=0&DL=0&NP=255&ID=&MF=WPEngMsg.ini&MQ=&TI=0&DT=&ST=0&IR=19026&NR=0&NB=6&SV=0&BG=&FG=&QS=ArchivesPhotosSearch&OEX=ISO-8859-1&OEH=ISO-8859-1 Or the direct link: http://ww2.glenbow.org/dbimages/arc3/k/na-1370-3.jpg

The copyright page (http://www.glenbow.org/copyright.cfm) says the images can only be used for noncommercial purposes, which I think is incompatible with wikimedia, but the image was taken in 1910. Doesn't that mean it's out of copyright? Nothanks23 (talk) 19:26, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. Like many museums, this one is trying to control access to its public domain resources, contrary to case law and the mission of a museum. See Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag. The relevant PD tags are {{PD-Canada}} and {{PD-1923}}. Mark your upload with {{Watermark}} so that the black text can be removed. Dcoetzee (talk) 19:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Thank You. Nothanks23 (talk) 00:04, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

deleting uploaded image

how to delee an uploaded image? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aruns3g (talk • contribs) 05:33, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

See Commons:Deletion policy (COM:DP). --Teratornis (talk) 05:40, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

filename problem with photo upload

I'm trying to make a gallery with some .JPG photos I took, but the uploader says that it can't use digital-camera filenames that begin with "DSC" or the like. However, I had already renamed the files in "custom_name.jpg" format before trying to upload them, so I can't see how the original name (like "DSC20090412.jpg") could still be detected. And, if it is still detectable, how could I truly change it? --Silverhill (talk) 11:27, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Which upload form or tool are you using? All the variations I have seen on our upload form have a "Destination filename:" field where you get to specify the name of the file on Commons. That should override any other copy of the filename that could be floating around somewhere. --Teratornis (talk) 18:33, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm using the "upload own work" form on the Commons upload page, which automatically fills in the "Destination filename" field using the filename from my local drive. The mystery continues, however, because I still get the "Permissions Errors" message: "You do not have permission to do that, for the following reason: The name of the file you are uploading begins with PICT, DSC, image, ..., which is a non-descriptive name typically assigned automatically by digital cameras. Please choose a more descriptive name for your file."

So, it doesn't feel like a problem with my filename conflicting with an established one in the Commons. (Or would I get this type of message anyway, if there were a name conflict, even though the message seems inapplicable here?) --Silverhill (talk) 08:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, what is the filename you are using? Lupo 09:46, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

"22 (Ti).jpg" -- should I have an underscore in there, e.g. "22_(Ti).jpg" ? --208.63.202.84 11:24, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Hm, how about following the advice and choosing a more descriptive name then? It appears to me that the "no more than two contiguous letters" rule in MediaWiki:Titleblacklist prevents this filename. And no, using an underscore wouldn't change anything. Lupo 11:40, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, that worked (at last)--thanks!

I had been trying to follow the format used in some similarly named photos in another gallery here, established by user "RTC", which has filenames such as "Ti,22.jpg‎". Note that this name has a two-letter-only string, as did my previous attempt, and is cryptic except to a chemist because of minimal detail. Were the "two-letter" and "more descriptive" restrictions imposed after RTC's photos were submitted, then? --Silverhill (talk) 18:53, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

With some effort, you could answer your own question. --Teratornis (talk) 18:56, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

"It's obvious!" said Watson. "Of course it's obvious," answered Holmes, "after I have explained it." <grin>

Indeed with some effort, since I had no idea heretofore that there even was a titles blacklist to search for. Thanks, all, for the illumination! (I had thought that the more elaborate descriptions were to be added as captions to the uploaded images, in their gallery, taking the place of elaboration in the filenames themselves.) --Silverhill (talk) 07:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I know we're not supposed to edit other people's comments but I thought you wouldn't mind --Yarnalgo (talk) 07:13, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
In case my reply seemed flippant, what I meant was that the only way someone would be likely to know when new rules appeared in MediaWiki:Titleblacklist would be to examine the history of that page. One would have to examine numerous diffs to identify the edits that introduced various rules, and this would take some effort. Probably no one would who is reading this Help desk at the moment would happen to already know the answer to this question:
  • "Were the "two-letter" and "more descriptive" restrictions imposed after RTC's photos were submitted, then?"
and thus the only way for anyone here to answer the question would be to study the histories of the various pages in question, to work out the timeline of when the various events occurred. Maybe someday, computers will be able to answer arbitrary, high-level questions like this posed in natural language, but that's probably decades off. --Teratornis (talk) 19:35, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
I believe I can help shed some light on this. Those particular rules were introduced in this edit on January 4, after I'd proposed them on the talk page. I also proposed an improved error message for them at the same time, but that part got delayed, mostly because I wasn't familiar enough with Commons practice at the time to realize that the message would have to be translated first. I'm probably also to blame for not advertising it more widely at the time: there was a thread at the village pump, but it was mainly about the translation issue and not the blacklist rules themselves.
Anyway, there's another thread about these same blacklist rules going on two headings down. Perhaps we should consolidate them? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:53, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Magnus' Flickr2Commons

Is Flickr2Commons down? I usually use Flickr2Commons as opposed to ~bryan's Flickr web tools because I found the latter has significant delay in uploading, while I have always found Magnus' to be instantaneous... until today. The file in question is File:Grandmaster Borislav Ivkov.jpg and it's been about an hour since I uploaded the image. Any ideas? Could someone test out the Magnus tool to see if it works for them? -Andrew c (talk) 14:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... looking at User:File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske)'s contrib, seems like the bot isn't down. -Andrew c (talk) 14:55, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Not sure what went wrong. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to contact me on my talk page. I've gone and used the other Flickr upload tool.-Andrew c (talk) 02:59, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Some times the bot can take up to a day or two for uploads. You just got to be patient. --Yarnalgo (talk) 03:01, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
I knew that was the case with bryan's tool, but I had never experienced delays with magnus'. Anyway, File:Borislav Ivkov.jpg was my second attempt with magnus', and File:Grandmaster Borislav Ivkov.jpg now is what I've done with bryan's. I'll give it a bit more time to see if either one shows up, but I've never experienced this long of a delay with either tool. Could the original jpg be corrupt or something like that?-Andrew c (talk) 13:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Google Earth

can I upload screenshots of google earth?--Drnhawkins (talk) 14:21, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

No. Google and those they buy data from claim copyright to those images.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:24, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Image update

Long time Wikipedia contributor, didn't realize you had to have a separate account for Commons, so my account here is too new to update an image on an article I'm working on. Please replace H1N1_map.svg with H1N1_map_noexclave.svg. Thanks. --Pifactorial (talk) 23:33, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

No, two reasons: 1) The description says countries 2) Your map is not created with a simple text editor. If you compare yours and the other map in a texteditor you will see a simple structure in the old and a total mess in your upload. Therefore no, you can link your version as an "other version" in the original upload. --Martin H. (talk) 23:48, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough, though if you had been following the article you would see that there have been a lot of people asking for a map like the one I created. I have no opinion on the matter, I was only giving them what they asked. I was in a rush and didn't figure out the structure of the original file until now; I will upload a new version produced in a text editor, in case they decide to use it. --Pifactorial (talk) 02:05, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Following "the" article is not enough. File:H1N1 map.svg is not only used in one article, it is used in 43 articles in 31 different languages - the english language article is realy unimportant. Changing the image in this way requires a description change in 31 language projects. Please remember this. upload your image under a different filename because it is different and not only updated. You might link the image with:
|other_versions= [[:File:H1N1_map_noexclave.svg]] - version showing ....
Thanks, --Martin H. (talk) 17:25, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Important request

We are not able to update pictures of astronomical objects of NGC Catalogue, IC catalogue and so on... because the software doesn't allow files starting with NGC, IC, etc, considering them as not-intuitive (or not descriptive) names given by cameras by default. But NGC 7023 (example) is the TRUE and best-intuitive and best-descriptive name of the pictures, because it's the correct name of the object! I won't update any astronomical image until this problem will be not fixed. So kindly try to make some exceptions. --Roberto Segnali all'Indiano 04:38, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

For one, it's a little silly to refuse to upload files because of a naming convention. Just use a name it's happy with. For another, NGC 7023.jpg is not the best and most descriptive name, unless there's only one possible photo of the galaxy; the most descriptive name would include when and with what the picture was taken.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:04, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Most of the NGC images have this type of name here on commons. Anyway, it's also easier, in seaching, to find a file starting with NGC..., because it's very logical trying with this name. That's all. The starting (the first part of the name) is important I think, and NGC or IC is a name never given by a camera. And it's not only one, but 7800+5400 (NGC+IC). Of course, I prefer upload in my single project, beacuse for our project it's easier to have regular and true-meaning filemane. :-) --Roberto Segnali all'Indiano 16:15, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
✓ Done
See MediaWiki:Titleblacklist for the rules for filenames that Commons does not allow, when evaluating the "Destination filename" field on the upload form. You should be able to start a filename with "NGC 7032" as long as you add some descriptive terms after that. For example, the name "NGC 7032 galaxy in constellation Pavo.jpg" might be acceptable. It would also make more sense to someone who does not know the abbreviation "NGC". --Teratornis (talk) 18:15, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Exception done, anyway. :-) --Roberto Segnali all'Indiano 18:54, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Requesting Image:H1N1_USA_Map_Newest.svg replace Image:H1N1_USA_Map.svg

SVG Updated to reflect recent stats. --Dane2003 (talk) 01:07, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Request - Bilateral relations Germany-Spain

Hola! I'm new here. I make the article Spanish-German bilateral relations for the spanisch wikipedia. I need a bilateral map showing both countries, Spain and Germany (like this one ), but I don't know how to create it. Maybe somebody here can help me. I'll be very glad when you answer me back at my discussion page in the spanish wikipedia (please here), I don't use to be conected here ;) Moltes gràcies. Leonprimer (talk) 00:22, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

✓ Done File:Spain Germany Locator.svg. I'll leave a note on your es wiki talk page but it will be through a translator. --Yarnalgo (talk) 05:35, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Name/sketchbook

Is it possible to do this? I have a /sandbox in my user area where I experiment with text. I am often asked to do .svg files by other users. At times I want to show them what I am doing- so they can confirm that this is what they want. My solution would be to upload a file sketchbook.svg to be used to experiment with graphics. The 'Entirely my own work' upload script refuses to upload a file containinh a '/'. Any ideas? ClemRutter (talk) 10:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Why can't you just upload the files normally? You could upload the "draft" and then upload the final version over it when it's done. --Yarnalgo (talk) 22:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
If there are 9 possible ways to display an icon- and we need to establish consensus on the way forward we need to upload 9 drafts of which only one will be selected. Even if we do a rapid delete there is a danger that another user will find, and use a soon to be erased file. Hence the idea above. Yes there are many ways to approach the problem- but they do need to be discussed here first so there is an audit trail. Back to the question- any further ideas?--ClemRutter (talk) 07:48, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
In other words, you want to do Collaborative editing on images. Unfortunately, MediaWiki only works for collaborative editing on text. Maybe someday we will have a real collaborative tool for SVG images. In the meantime, you could consider these options:
  • Create an account on Flickr where you can upload all the images you want, into your own userspace that you control, and organize them into photostreams (to group related drafts of an image). You can then discuss the images with other users on Flickr, or on Commons. You cannot directly display a Flickr image on Commons, but you can link to the image on Flickr. Once you and your collaborators agree on an image, you can upload it to Commons. Be sure to license your images with CC-BY-SA on Flickr so you can also put them on Commons.
  • Upload scratch images to Commons, and mark them with a template such as {{Obsolete}} that warns other users not to use them. (That may not be the best template; ideally we should have something like an "Experimental" template for this case. Search the template namespace for something suitable.)
  • Ask the folks on COM:GVP what they do in this situation (which must certainly come up for others).
--Teratornis (talk) 17:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
For some examples of SVG files on Flickr that are freely licensed, search with {{Flickr free}}:
  • Search Flickr for images with the keywords: SVG under these licenses: cc-by or cc-by-sa
It may be that you can only upload bitmaps to Flickr - at least the examples I see of SVG files on Flickr are just bitmap renderings at various resolutions. But that wouldn't be a problem for what you want to do; users would still be able to see what your images look like. --Teratornis (talk) 18:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

How to change an already uploaded .tif file into an .jpg one?

I recently uploaded on the Wikimedia Commons a .tif photograph file which is downloadable but is not shown on page as that photograph, only as an empty box. Probably I should change it into a .jpg one as most of the photograph files seem to be on that format. How can I upload a new photograph and change the format of the file as well? Or should I first ask the admin to remove the original .tif, and only after that I can upload the .jpg with the same name? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaikuuvelo (talk • contribs) 10:20, April 28, 2009 (UTC)

See Commons:File types. Commons does not except tiff files so you will have to upload it as a jpeg. I tagged the tiff so it will be deleted. You can upload the jpeg with the same name anytime (you don't have to wait for the other one to be deleted). --Yarnalgo (talk) 22:30, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
Commons has accepted TIFF files since March; see the bugzilla page. There's no thumbnail support yet, though.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Licensing when uploading images owned by university vs. individual

How do we determine what type of license we should use to upload an image of the campus? I am the designated person by the university to maintain the CSUSB Wikipedia profile. The campus photographer, employed by the university, has taken photos of the campus. He does not own the copyright of photos; the university does. Therefore, under what licensing category do I assign the photos, i.e., they are not personally my own, but the university's own photos. "Owned entirely by me" as the university is true, but not me personally. How do I differentiate that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Csusb (talk • contribs) 19:06, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Csusb, if the CSUSB is the holder of all copyrights you should enter the Universities name in the Author section with the upload and the Source "created by university employee" (or a more detailed adress of your main office or something more sophisticated in better english). Select a license with your upload, e.g. {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}} and add {{OTRS pending}} to your uploads. Send an Email to OTRS refering to the filenames, the email must certainly state, that the CSUSB is the holder of copyrights and that the CSUSB releases the files under the selected license. Please feel free to ask if assistance is needed or if you have any further questions. --Martin H. (talk) 23:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Request for new picture version to be moved: "Pico da Neblina.jpg"

I have just uploaded the picture "Pico da Neblina no watermark.jpg", based on the picture "Pico da Neblina.jpg", uploaded by user Heitor C. Jorge. The original picture was taken by Robson Czaban and I suppose the uploader received his permission - details have been truncated in the Information tag (which I have preserved verbatim). The original picture has a small watermark at the bottom, and the corresponding page has a warning tag asking for the watermark to be removed. I cropped the picture to remove the watermark, using Corel Paint Shop Pro, but could not upload the file as a new version because, while having a reasonably old and active Wikipedia account, I had to open a new Wikimedia Commons one. Being a new account, the upload as a new version was refused, and I had to upload the edited picture as a new file.

So, as instructed to do on the error message page that I got, I am requesting that the uploaded file please be moved as a new version of "Pico da Neblina.jpg", which is referenced in the corresponding Wikipedia article (about Brazil's highest mountain, which the picture shows). I could edit the Wikipedia article to reference the newly uploaded version, but I am afraid that would create a terrible mess of versions, pictures and attributions.

Last-minute addendum: licensing problem

I was about to save this request but when I hit the "Preview" button I saw a warning that I got a new message on my Talk page. It was a bot-generated message that read:

There seems to be a problem regarding the description and/or licensing of this particular file. It has been found that you've added in the image's description only a Template that's not a license and although it provides useful informations about the image, it's not a valid license. Could you please resolve this problem, adding the license in the image linked above? You can edit the description page and change the text. Uploading a new version of the file does not change the description of the file. This page may give you more hints on which license to choose. Thank you.

This problem wouldn't exist (or at least it wouldn't be mine) if the picture had been uploaded as what it really is: a new version of an already existing picture. As I am not the original uploader, I have no details about the authorization supposedly given by the author (and I believe this is not the original uploader's fault either, since this information gets routinely truncated in Information tags). How do we solve this?

Thank you very much for your help. --UrsoBR (talk) 00:13, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

You could have the license problem avoided with adding a license tag. The original file is licensed {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}}, this is a share alike license, means derivative works of this file must be licensed under the same license, so this would be the correct license for your reupload. I did the replacement as requested, but also marked the image is missing permission because no permission from the author is indicated. --Martin H. (talk) 00:27, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
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